The Dynamically Augmented Wheel System (DAWs) is about as nerdy as it sounds, also, its way too cool. Designed with inspiration from bike wheels and human foot, DAWs aims to offer greater maneuverability for cars, maintaining good traction. The wheel is divided into eight parts, controlled by servos, a drive gear and magnets, to allow the wheel to lean while maintaining traction. Designer Charles Pyott completed the design in 10 weeks, on a $800 budget.
Via: DAWs/ YankoDesign/ Gizmodo
Comments
pretty ingenious. however, the problem i see in practice as opposed to prototype is the conflict of friction caused by both gravity and accelerational g-forces (in turns) which needs to be overcome by the servo motors seeking to adjust the relative ”lean” of the individual plates, which must necessarily press against each other to distribute the load around the rim (or at least adjacent plates).
Furthermore, in order to maintain this ’lean’ as the wheel rotates (quickly), these plates are *constantly* and *quickly* being moved in and out as the plate rotates around the axel (out at the road, in at the apex). The wobble produced by this action is likely to inject as much handling instability as is overcome by the theory, and at tremendous cost in work, moving parts, and opportunities for individual plates to suffer failure due to leverage forces if the plates are not in contact in order ot facilitate individual motion.
In other words the servos would have to move so faster and faster as speed increases and also the wheel be completely unbalanced.... This just isn’t going to happen ... good concept but it needs more work.